Sparks in the Dark
The years in the village passed slowly, each spring bringing more mud than harvest, each winter more hunger than peace. The hut I grew up in was fragile, the stove forever smoking, and the only wealth we possessed was the warmth of human breath.
But within me burned something far different from the other children.
The village boys chased one another across the yards, shouting and laughing, while I sat alone in the corner, my eyes fixed on the shadows stretching beyond the hearth. They collected pebbles and sticks – I collected memories of empires I once ruled.
By the age of six, I was already something else.
A frail child's body wrestled with the vastness of a soul that had once commanded armies. Every day I felt magic pulse within my veins – unclean, dark, but pliant to my will.
---
The first time it happened was in the forest.
My mother had sent me to gather mushrooms. Other children feared to step deep between the trees, but I felt at home where the whispers of darkness lingered.
I crouched over a black stone, watching ants march in their obedient line, blind creatures living only for the will of their queen. And then I tried it – just a thought, just a desire.
The air grew heavy. The ants froze, as though their purpose had vanished. Then, as if by command, they turned all at once and crawled directly toward my feet. I felt it – the thin strands of power binding them to me. Small creatures, enslaved by shadow.
I smiled. A smile no child should know.
And yet… my mother's voice stirred in my mind: "Do not harm without reason." Her words, her gaze, her touch – things I had once scorned as weakness. Yet now they tangled with the burning satisfaction of control.
For the first time, I hesitated.
---
My mother often sang to me. Foolish songs, simple, filled with tales of sun, rain, and the life I had always dismissed with contempt. Yet when she sang, her eyes shone – and I felt something strange.
It was worse than any wound ever dealt to me. Worse than betrayal.
It was love.
I could not understand it. Why would anyone give everything, and demand nothing in return? In my old world, love was only a weapon, a chain to bind souls.
But when my mother bent close, her hand brushing my cheek, and whispered, "You are my child. That is all."
In that moment, the darkness within me trembled.
---
My father was different. Silent, stern, forever weary. But his silence was not cold. Each day he labored from dawn till dusk so that I might eat, so that I might have shoes, even if worn and torn. He never smiled, never embraced me, yet when I once fell and tore my knee, it was he who lifted me, carried me home without a word.
To see his bloodied hands from toil, to feel his sweat, to know that every breath he took was sacrificed for his family – it was a greater magic than any incantation I had ever mastered. And that terrified me.
---
Yet the power could not be suppressed.
At night I listened to villagers whisper about strange happenings – animals vanishing without trace, shadows moving though the moon was hidden. That was me. Testing. Searching. Training.
Once, while playing with the other children, one mocked me and shoved me down. The blacksmith's son, stronger than I, a bully like those I had crushed in my former reign.
Something inside me snapped.
I whispered a word – weak, incomplete, but soaked in hatred.
The boy collapsed, clutching his chest, gasping as if fire consumed his lungs.
The others screamed, running for help.
I stood, heart racing, knowing I could end him with a single syllable more.
But I remembered my mother. Her voice, her eyes. And I said nothing. The boy recovered, they thought he had stumbled, thought it chance.
Only I knew the truth.
---
That evening I sat by the hearth. My mother stirred the pot, my father silently mended the fence wood.
I stared at their backs. So frail. So vulnerable. A mere thought and their hearts would still forever.
And yet I remained, silent, listening to my mother's song.
I am not their son. I am no ordinary child.
I am the lord who returned from the grave.
And yet… something in their gazes, in their sacrifices, in their foolish, ordinary love…
Something began to root within me. Not weakness. Not power. Something else.
Something I did not yet understand.